


Day after Day (I Call That Fate)

by orphan_account



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Porn, Explicit Sexual Content, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 12:32:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11185197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: T'Challa never came to bed anymore.He left first thing when W’Kabi woke up each morning, and he secluded himself as soon as they were off-duty each evening.It was starting to feel like W’Kabi had fallen in love with a ghost. Grieving and elusive, a shadow in lightless corners.





	Day after Day (I Call That Fate)

**Author's Note:**

> Unedited/beta'd as usu. Title from "Fate" by Lydia.

T'Challa was… changed, after he came back from Europe. And W’Kabi noticed (he always did, when it came to the Prince—King, now), of course he did, but so had others as of late. 

The way he conducted himself never strayed from a perfect performance, and yet T’Challa’s strain edged through cracks in his veneer, unassuming as a dim light, shedding secrets. His hands trembled before each clench—hid his suffering before it could begin to show or, worse, _grow_. 

And the people of the palace—T'Challa’s family, the heads of the Dora Milaje (who were probably his closest friends besides)—began to take note.

But at the end of the day, when the meetings wrapped and affairs took a dip, T'Challa made himself so scarce that few could find him. 

Although no emergencies had cropped up since his return home, all were secure in the knowledge that he would make himself available. W'Kabi somehow suspected that T'Challa might welcome a disaster, in fact.

He tried not to think too hard on it as he wandered, sleepless, through the dark halls of the palace well past midnight. 

(The nights were always worst for W’Kabi because he'd wake up, a gasp scraping past his throat, sweat stinging hot at his lip and hairline, panicked because he was _alone_ , and if he was _alone_ , that meant T'Challa _hadn't come back_ —just like the King hadn't—lost to a mishap that would embitter the nation for a long time to come—like so much _smoke_ and _ash_.)

T'Challa never came to bed anymore.

He left first thing when W’Kabi woke up each morning, and he secluded himself as soon as they were off-duty each evening. 

It was starting to feel like W’Kabi had fallen in love with a ghost. Grieving and elusive, a shadow in lightless corners. 

W’Kabi’s heart broke. For the tragedy, yes, and for the fallout of those left to its shockwave. For Ramonda, who had served as Queen in T’Chaka’s immediate stead without the light she once wielded in her eyes. For Shuri, who spent so many of her days tinkering in the labs that the Midnight Angels couldn't keep up. (Not too unlike T'Challa, locking herself away from the world, though she seemed to eat more than he did.) And of course for T'Challa, who W'Kabi couldn't figure out how to even talk to anymore. 

Hell, he had his own personal wounds to mend in the wake of T’Chaka’s death, but W'Kabi didn't want to be the only one healing anymore.

If there was somehow _a way_ to _heal T’Challa_ with his own two hands—or words—or love— _anything_ , W’Kabi would pounce on it at first glimpse.

Clearly, T'Challa wasn't healing too much on his own.

Or else they would be in bed together right now, holding onto whatever tenuous hope remained until they could surface again. 

Instead, W'Kabi found himself here, the sleep robe pulled tighter around his shoulders as he came around a random turn in the hall that he hadn't been paying attention to. A short walk to the end led to a backlit door, but only by the faintest light—it flickered—and W'Kabi paused before turning back the way he had come. 

His thoughts buzzed all over his skin as he crept closer, cautious in the quiet dark. He stopped with his hand against the door, feeling the wood, smooth under his fingers, and closed his eyes to listen. 

On the other side, too faint to make out individual words, he heard T'Challa’s voice. 

W'Kabi stepped back from the door and pushed it open to a large office with a fire glowing shyly behind a mesh screen. The colors of the room were as warm as the hearth reflected against T’Challa’s silhouette from where he sat in a large, ornate chair, dark grey and high-backed as the throne. In a corner stood a tall glass encasement of a cloak so distinctive that W’Kabi instantly recognized it.

T’Chaka’s cape. The high collar curled just so at the tips, and gold embellishments marked the shoulders, throat and twin clasps like diamonds coated in honey. Firelight flashed at every curve.

Beyond indulgently, W’Kabi took several moments to stand and listen to T’Challa’s voice murmur low into the room. (What was he reading?) Then he moved in closer.

T’Challa went silent and turned partway over his shoulder to meet W’Kabi’s gaze with his own. A somber smirk lit his face for a second as he took in W’Kabi standing well forward of the threshold. Probably assessing how long he’d been listening if—if T’Challa didn’t already know, naturally.

W’Kabi flinched at the sound of whatever book—journal—T’Challa held in his lap, and then neither one of them was smiling anymore.

“I apologize, my love. I didn’t mean to frighten you,” T’Challa said.

“You didn’t,” W’Kabi said. Almost flinched again when he remembered that he— _had_. Then reconsidered. “It’s not your fault. Mind if I join you?”

“Please do.”

Both exhausted and relieved, W’Kabi did.

T’Challa sat cross legged in the chair facing the cape, and W’Kabi came to stand at his side, hand gentle on T’Challa’s shoulder.

He turned and pressed his lips to the back of W’Kabi’s hand, reached up to cover it with his own.

“Why are you awake so late?” he asked.

W’Kabi gazed down at T’Challa, cocooned in this chair, secluded in this forgotten office, staring at his late father’s uniform cape. “I will answer your question if you will answer one of mine.”

T’Challa paused—not for too long—then glanced up at W’Kabi’s face, their hands still warm against each other. “That’s fair.”

“Are you okay?”

“You didn’t answer _my_ question, W’Kabi—”

“I am awake so late because I don’t know if you are okay, T’Challa.” He hoped the echo of his tone registered lowkey enough to come across unaccusingly, but W’Kabi didn’t know how to say it any other way, at this point.

He _missed_ T’Challa, so so bitter coldly.

And maybe he imagined the tremulous note in T’Challa’s voice—but he said, “I am okay, I promise.”

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, then?”

“Have I been hiding? I wasn’t aware.”

W’Kabi studied his face for a short while, reading the lines around his mouth, and pulled his hand from beneath T’Challa’s to cup his chin. T’Challa automatically straightened up a measure, his breath sinking in an instant.

“You may not be,” W’Kabi said, “but I certainly am.” He thumbed lightly at the King’s lip, couldn’t too much resist when T’Challa was looking up at him like that, all sad and lost. 

One of T’Challa’s hands rose to graze teasing fingers over W’Kabi’s cock through his sleep pants.

W’Kabi let out a flighty, electric laugh much like a gasp; tightened his grip on T’Challa’s chin. “What are you reading?” He nodded to the journal that had fallen to the seat of the chair beside him.

T’Challa shook his head, blinked slow. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

And dipped forward to place a kiss over his hand where it stroked W’Kabi in short bursts, soft touches that teased.

W’Kabi shivered as he shrugged out of his sleep robe to adorn T’Challa instead. The fire popped, as if in reminder. “Then we won’t talk about it But, kitten, I simply wanted to check on you. We can go to bed, if you want to.”

“I know.” T’Challa brushed his lips once more over W’Kabi’s cloth-covered cock. Peered up silken-slow with desire. “I don’t want to.”

Doubt slid free of W’Kabi’s mind as he rounded to the front of the chair, facing T’Challa. The King was shirtless underneath W’Kabi’s robe, clad only in black briefs that rose high on his thick thighs, one still crossed over the other.

“Open your legs for me, softness,” W’Kabi said, insinuating himself between them.

T’Challa gave way easily, lazy but wanting, too. He reached to free W’Kabi’s cock and mouthed at the tip, weighing it on his lips while one hand came up to cup his balls.

W’Kabi tossed his head back, hips nuding his cock past T’Challa’s lips and into creeping, searing heat. He grabbed at the back of T’Challa’s neck and withdrew a bit. There was something he wanted to say—probably needed to, if they were landing here—but wires crossed somewhere between brain and mouth, leaving W’Kabi speechless.

He concentrated on his actions, instead. Guided his cock smoothly between lips unlike any others: full, always tinged with sweetness, _a welcome_. Immersed himself in the miracle that was T’Challa’s mouth smearing spit and precum between hands and hotter skin.

It was pure luxury, W’Kabi getting T’Challa out of the chair and onto the floor without breaking their connection, the sound of T’Challa’s knees when they hit the rug (plush, if old; still forgiving).

T’Challa dropped a hand to his own cock, gave it a long pull that made him close his eyes and breathe _so much harder_ —

W’Kabi tapped T’Challa’s cheek twice—sharp, a way to _ground_ him, never _hurt_ —and waited for those gorgeous brown eyes to open before sliding his dick in deeper. He watched the journal T’Challa had set aside earlier slide to the floor behind them while T’Challa gulped, taking W’Kabi to the back of his throat.

They were still awhile. Carved a space to savor each other. Breathed through the intensity.

Or tried to, at least. T’Challa was making it immensely difficult for W’Kabi to calm down at all, with the way he suckled at his cock as he deepthroated it, massaged at the thickness in his mouth.

All W’Kabi needed was the tiny shift of a nod from T’Challa before he allowed himself to shiver—shiver and shake apart, spill thick into the heat that wrapped the whole way around him, sweet as a dream.

The sensation danced through W’Kabi’s nerves. By the time he gathered himself enough to take in the sight of T’Challa on his knees, it still took a few moments for him to realize that T’Challa’s breathing matched his own (ragged, fucked out, sated as hell). In the dying firelight, he could see the shine of come staining his briefs.

W’Kabi took a final breath to clear his head then dipped his finger beneath T’Challa’s chin to meet eyes. “You still okay, kitten?”

T’Challa swallowed, lashes heavy as he blinked hazy eyes. “Tired,” he said. Hoarse. _Raw_ , from taking W’Kabi as deep as he had. He sighed, his face no longer so subtly sad.

“Then let’s go to bed. It certainly awaits you.”

He didn’t let out more than a weak chuckle, but T’Challa got to his feet with some help from W’Kabi and shrugged before getting rid of his dirty underwear.

W’Kabi took care of the hearth. When he turned around, T’Challa had the journal in his hands again.

“Your father’s?” W’Kabi guessed as he went to secure the front of the robe he had given to T’Challa earlier.

The King did not start. He did not look jarred or caught off guard. Merely—resigned. He shrugged and lay the journal facedown back in the chair.

Cast a brief glance over toward the glass case where the regal cape stood on display.

Then grabbed W’Kabi’s hand, intertwined their fingers and shuffled sleepily from the past.

They left the door cracked on the way out.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos always welcome ?? :)


End file.
